


Sandstorm

by finx



Series: Finx Plays AU Bingo [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Andy as Obi-Wan, Booker as Owen Larsson, Joe and Nicky as Han and Chewie if they were also simutaneously Chirrut and Baze, Nile as Leia, grief-stricken and alone, you'll never guess who gets to be Darth Vader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27816961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finx/pseuds/finx
Summary: Help me, Andromache of Scythia. You're my only hope.
Series: Finx Plays AU Bingo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1293335
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	Sandstorm

Andy’s drinking Booker under the table when the little droid finds her. She shouldn’t be—Nicky and Joe will be flying in tomorrow, and she and Booker really shouldn’t be hungover to greet them. They deserve better than that.

She’ll make it up to them. Somehow. Tomorrow. Today, there’s smoke in the air from a fire somewhere in the desert, heavy and cloying, and she and Booker have committed to this course of action and are not about to stop. Not even for the determined little droid that finds a way to wheel up the rocky path up to her cave and trundle inside, beeping and whistling up a storm of such vehement profanity that Andy almost leans over and covers Booker’s ears, even if he is snoring gently into the table and also a grown adult.

She is just sober enough to stop herself, and instead she picks out one of the empty bottles on the table between them and throws it at the droid. It clunks against the dull silver dome without breaking, and Andy silently congratulates herself on her aim. “What do you want, rust bucket?”

The droid responds with a series of insults so pointed that Andy sits up and squints at it. The suns are low in the sky, and neither she nor Booker bothered with any lamps to beat back the gathering gloom, so Andy tugs on the Force and sharpens her vision.

Then she lunges to her feet and half staggers, half overbalances onto her knees in front of the little droid. It doesn’t back away, even when she runs shaking hands all over it, whispering _is it you is it you are you really here is it really—_

“Do you remember me?” she asks suddenly, sick anticipation sour on her tongue. It’s so easy to wipe a droid’s memory, and so hard to tell when it happens. If everything is gone, forgotten… But R2-D2 just chirps out a steady, “Of course,” as if it knows she couldn’t survive sarcasm just now. “No wipes since before Naboo.”

Tears spring to her eyes, and she bites down on an oath. R2 doesn’t say anything when she presses her forehead to the cool metal of its dome and fights to get her breathing under control. She’s too drunk for this. She’s too drunk to be thinking about Naboo again.

Andy lurches upright and grabs for her bottle. She drains it to the bottom before demanding, “Why are you here?” Her voice is rough enough that R2 definitely notices. It’s not like most droids—it can actually tell the difference between “fine” and “about to have a mental breakdown”—but for once it’s kind enough not to say anything. Instead it trundles back a few paces and projects a recorded holo, glitchy blue and almost blinding in the darkening cave.

Andy watches it five times without making a sound. Then she dashes at the tears streaking her cheeks and asks, “What happened?” She doesn’t ask if Nile is alive. She’ll feel it when Nile dies.

“We got caught,” R2 says, with a trill that would be a bitter shrug if it had shoulders. “They know she’s been helping the Resistance now. Her diplomatic immunity can’t save her anymore.”

“Who has her?”

R2 tells her.

* * *

Technically, there is a rule against Jedi using the Force to burn away a hangover. Technically, Andy doesn’t care. She manhandles a protesting Booker into the speeder as soon as the second sun appears on the horizon and guns it down to Mos Eisley. She’s already packed, not that there was much to take. A few spare outfits for her and Booker, what food was left in the cupboard. The only thing that really matters is belted at her waist. She still can’t stand to touch it, but she knows better than to pretend she won’t be wielding it soon.

And the other one, of course. Flung into the bottom of the rations bag, where she doesn’t have to look at it. Nile is going to need a weapon.

Nicky and Joe get in just as Andy’s pulling up to the port. She pauses to watch their old clunker set down. They’ve been away for months this time, off doing whatever it is two former Guardians of the Whills do out in the black. She doesn’t race ahead and leave Booker and R2 to catch up, but it’s a close thing.

She meets them in the hangar before they’ve gotten five feet from the ship. Joe smells like engine grease, and Nicky’s got that relaxed slope to his shoulders that means they’ve had a good few months. That could mean they holed up somewhere nice and fed each other sweets over beautiful sunsets, or it could mean they left an imperial squadron in smithereens out between the stars. No way to know, with these two. Either way, they’re both walking light and easy. Despite everything, Andy allows herself a fierce hug from each of them before she gets down to business.

“Nile’s in trouble,” she says when Joe lets her go.

Nicky turns, one arm still slung over Booker’s shoulders. “Nile?”

Joe’s eyes widen. “You mean…?”

Andy nods. “It’s her. The empire caught up with her. Turns out she’s been running with the Resistance.” She doesn’t bother to keep the pride out of her voice. If she’d had a choice about any of it, she’d have kept Nile far away from all of that, but she can’t say she’s not glad to hear Nile’s a fighter.

Booker gestures to R2, who’s wandered over to make an inspection of Joe and Nicky’s ship. “She sent a droid to Andy for help. It’s got something for the Resistance, won’t tell us what.”

“Where is she?” Nicky asks.

R2 whistles an answer. Nicky goes very, very still. Joe swears. “Did that droid just say—“

“Don’t say her name,” Andy snarls, surprising herself.

The silence that follows is jagged, uncomfortable, and Andy doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Nicky and Joe start in on some silent argument, but before they reach a consensus, Booker says, “It doesn’t matter who has Nile. We’ll get her back.”

Everyone turns to stare at him, but he doesn’t flinch under their gazes. He wasn’t there for any of it, he doesn’t _know_ —but then again, he’s never had to. Booker never asked Andy any questions when she put a baby in his arms, and she never gave him any answers, but he knew enough even then to guess at the shape of things. He’d kept watch for imperial scouts, he’d kept the boy out of trouble with local law enforcement, he’d even gone to Andy when the kid started to talk to the wind and make toys float. He’d been ready. They both had.

But for the wrong thing, as it turned out. Andy was halfway across the planet when the Tusken raiders attacked the farm. She raced back as soon as she realized there was trouble, but she was still deep in the desert when agony slammed through her chest, five quick bursts of terrified, painful death. She kept going when she realized that one of the deaths didn’t take, that the spirit lingered in the space between this world and the next, hesitating over the threshold.

She’s been trying, ever since, to forgive Booker for being the one who survived. He’s been trying to forgive her for arriving in time to save him.

Now, though, Booker’s shoulders are still slumped under the weight of his perpetual grief, and he’s sallow with hangover, but his eyes are clear. His voice is tired, but it's steady. “We’ll find her, we’ll rescue her, we’ll get her to the Resistance.” He looks at each of them in turn, and a smile ghosts across his face. “Pretty sure the three of you put together can take on any imperial ship in the black.”

Nicky quirks a thin smile at that. “True enough.” He looks to Joe, and must be satisfied by whatever he sees there, because he turns back to the ship, pulling Booker along with him. “Come on, little droid,” he calls to R2. “Let’s get you settled in while Joe and Andy get us fuel and supplies.”

Joe doesn’t quite wait until they’re gone to ask in a low voice, “Will you be able to face her? She’s not herself anymore.”

Andy bites down on a furious retort. She knows that Nicky and Joe have crossed paths with her, out in the black. They’ve never talked to Andy about it, thankfully, but she’s seen it in the edges of what they don’t say, after certain trips. That they got close enough to see the aftermath of her passage. That they felt the crackling echo of her in the Force. No closer than that, Andy’s sure, or they wouldn’t have made it back at all.

“She has Nile,” Andy says instead. “I’ll do whatever I have to.”

Joe holds her gaze a long moment. Andy beats back the urge to raise her chin and turn it into a challenge.

He finally nods, and Andy carefully does not let out a breath of relief. If Joe wasn’t still willing to trust her with his and Nicky’s safety, she’d have had to take a long hard look at herself, and with Nile in danger she really doesn’t have the time.

“Come on, then,” Joe says, clapping her on the shoulder. “We have to stock up. The haggling will go faster if you lurk behind me and look menacing.”


End file.
